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'Stronghold Kingdoms' Goes Gold After Two-Year-Long Beta

Build, fight and rise to power, in a world of castles and kings. In 2010, thousands of lords and ladies will join the race for the crown, in Firefly’s new castle MMO.

Stronghold Kingdoms is a free-to-play game where gamers fight, trade, farm and negotiate their way to success, aided by the thoughtful use of strategy cards.

Besiege the castle that's never been taken, overthrow tyrants, bankroll your factions war effort, pillage your neighbor's resources, peacefully raise sheep or do it all! The choice is yours in a wide-ranging simulation of medieval life, played out in real time against thousands of online opponents striving for power and glory.

A hybrid of web- and PC-based gaming brings together online interactivity and community with a richly depicted medieval world of thriving villages and dramatic battles. Build a kingdom over days and weeks. A mix of real-time gameplay with long-term planning, this brings a novel twist to the strategy genre.

While strong and well-planned castles are at the heart of any lord's domain, players can also specialize via a vast research tree. Starting out as a humble peasant, each promotion brings research points to spend on becoming the best in as many areas as you wish — diplomacy, farming, trading, warfare and more — as the player seeks to control the local parish, county and beyond. As their power grows, players can eventually join in a country-wide war for the crown.

Following on from the addition of quests, the new Coat of Arms Designer, graphical updates and a milestone of one million registered players, Stronghold Kingdoms will be released with a new update that adds new sound effects to the game.

New sound effects have been one of the most frequently requested features for Stronghold Kingdoms, adding a layer of immersion to the game that appeals to players new and old. Battles now rumble with the marching and clash of armies, scouts can be heard galloping to their next target and traders carting off to the parish capital with their goods. There are also a number of sounds added to the user interface, providing better feedback for players.

Nick Tannahill, Marketing Manager at Firefly Studios, had the following to say concerning the new release. "In the current free-to-play climate, it's not uncommon for games to stay in beta for more than a year before seeing release. In the case of Kingdoms, we wanted to wait until the game felt complete before leaving beta, and with the new sound effects, we feel we've achieved that. This is really a celebration of all the tweaking, balancing and feature-building the team has been doing over the past year and a half. We feel it's a milestone worthy of a full release.”